Judge orders YouTube to hand over viewer access logs

Quote:

Dismissing privacy concerns, a US judge overseeing a $US1 billion ($A1.04 billion) copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube has ordered the online video sharing service to disclose who watches which video clips and when.

US District Judge Louis Stanton authorised full access to the YouTube logs after Viacom and other copyright holders argued that they needed the data to show whether their copyright-protected videos are more heavily watched than amateur clips.

The data would not be publicly released but disclosed only to the plaintiffs, and it would include less specific identifiers than a user's real name or email address.

Lawyers for Google Inc, which owns YouTube, said producing 12 terabytes of data - equivalent to the text of roughly 12 million books - would be expensive, time consuming and a threat to users' privacy.

The database includes information on when each video gets played, which can be used to determine how often a clip is viewed. Attached to each entry is each viewer's unique login ID and the Internet Protocol, or IP, address for that viewer's computer. (continues)

I guess its a timely reminder that almost everything we do on the Internet is recorded in a database somewhere.

Joined: Jul 07, 2008 Posts: 10

yea.. But it doesnt seem really fair that they're just giving someone our private records (not like they have a choice though Sad

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Yep - I studied the book in my final year of high school (in 1983 - just one year away from the time the story was set in). It's why I rally so hard against the increasing surveillance of society. In the story, changes had crept in so gradually that the people never really noticed just how much they were being monitored and their lives were being controlled until it was way too late to do anything about it. Most of the changes had been announced as measures to protect the population, and the people welcomed them (as many do now with the catch-cry "If you haven't done anything wrong....."). That's what I see happening today, and we can learn a lot from George Orwell's visions of where society might go when the population becomes compliant and submissive to government.

Joined: Mar 12, 2007 Posts: 678 Location: ann arbor

Yep - I studied the book in my final year of high school (in 1983 ... That's what I see happening today, and we can learn a lot from George Orwell's visions of where society might go when the population becomes compliant and submissive to government.

Yep - I studied the book in my final year of high school (in 1983 ... That's what I see happening today, and we can learn a lot from George Orwell's visions of where society might go when the population becomes compliant and submissive to government.

Joined: Mar 12, 2007 Posts: 678 Location: ann arbor

Are you saying that your government simply pays any bill of any provider no matter what size or for what without question or investigation or documentation? I find that inconceivable.

Pretty much so. The government trusts doctors to do the right thing. Medical records remain the property of the medical service provider. When attending the doctor, I sign a Medicare slip with my Medicare number on it to verify the doctor performed a consultation or whatever. If the doctor bulk-bills, he/she will send the slip to Medicare for reimbursement. Otherwise, I can pay the doctor and then take the receipt to Medicare for reimbursement.

The Health Insurance Commission monitors medical providers for over-servicing (based on the amount of claims they make and any other unusual patterns), and can launch investigations where the doctor has to prove the services provided were legitimate and required. But by and large, patient records are untouched - they are considered confidential and not for perusal by the authorities unless in exceptional circumstances.